More Tubby-era stats

[TedRay80]

For those of you who don't like my stat-pulling, you probably should just move on to another thread--nothing else interesting here. For those who like them, here goes...

I've always considered the measure of your team (at least at our level) in college basketball as how you do in the NCAA tournament. I'd rather lose 15 games and win a few in the tournament than have a "great season" and go home in the first two rounds of the tournament (poor Kansas and Purdue). Based on that, here are some NCAA tourney stats...

-The only team to go to more sweet 16's in the "Tubby-era" is Duke. Only Michigan St., Maryland and UCLA have been there 4 times, along with Kentucky. (RP also never made it more than 4 times in a 5 year stretch.)

-Only 3 teams--Duke, Mich. St. and UConn have been to the Elite 8 more times than we have.

-Mich. St. (3), Duke (2), Maryland (2) and UNC (2) have been to the Final 4 more times than we have.

-Only Duke has played in two championship games, and no one has won two championships.

How do we stack up compared to other teams in the nation when it comes to tournament time?? I'd say Duke, Michigan St. and Maryland stand out above us. I think I could present a pretty good argument that we've been better than any other team over the same stretch, though.

In the big, 50-year picture, I don't care to settle for 4th best, but over a 5-year span, I'm pretty happy with it. Anybody notice some of Steve Spurrier's comments leaving Florida? If he didn't have the #1 program in football every year, the fans weren't happy. I bet they miss him now.

Side note: we're not going to get Coach K, Tom Izzo or Gary Williams if we oust Tubby. No one else has consistently performed better than his teams in the past 5 years.

[Tummygoat]

I agree with you Teddy. Tubby has had some fine moments. Seems though that his moments were in the past though and I really don't see any of these accomplishments in the future. Next year's team will not be as good as this year's. We don't really have any star recruits to make up for Bogans, but we'll still be good. As I stated earlier, I'm starting my campaign for Billy Donovan. There is much not to like about him, but he's the best youngest coach in the nation and it would be a mistake if we didn't try and land him. Tubby won't be around much longer and I think his patience with Big Blue Nation is running thin too. I'm not caving into the possibility that he'll end up having a good season, but how we played yesterday is how we play 80% of the time. Unless he changes something, I think he'd be more successful elsewhere. Of course if we don't land Billy and we are obviously not going to land the ones you mentioned then yes, it would be a mistake to get rid of him.

[Administrator]

Coach Smith has done well while he's been here IMO. We haven't blown the competition away or anything like that but a very solid job nonetheless.

I personally think the problem is his offensive philosophy. The half court grind isn't nowhere near as exciting as an open court run-and-gun type of offense. Havoc on the court is very exciting because of so much action and movement and you never know what to expect.

You never have to guess what's going to happen when the half court game plan is acitve. If fact, it's quite predictable. This is the reason I think we've had problems with some of the SEC teams as of late.

[Tummygoat]

I agree Spam. Against ASU and the first 5 minutes against UVA were some of the most exciting times in UK basketball.

[TedRay80]

Spam said:

The half court grind isn't nowhere near as exciting as an open court run-and-gun type of offense. Havoc on the court is very exciting because of so much action and movement and you never know what to expect.

I'd imagine this is one of the reasons Tubby doesn't get nearly as much slack as Pitino. If the game is exciting, people seem to be able to stomach losing more easily. (I also realize he got some slack for being the savior of our program.) Nobody ever called for Pitino's head when he lost an ugly second-rounder to Marquette or had one of the worst games I've ever seen UK play against UNC in the Elite 8.

[kj]

Wrong there T Ray. I am one of Pitino's biggest advocates and would take him back in a heartbeat but he did a crappy job in those 2 games and has taken a lot of criticism for losing close games. Trouble with that criticism was we didn't have a lot of close games with RP at the helm.

[Tummygoat]

Of course we also didn't play anyone. I think our schedule the last five years has been ridiculous. UK will play ANYONE. And the SEC went from fourth or fifth best to around 1-2 best in the last 4 years. Lot of factors there when considering close losses.

[KY Kid]

Last year was the first year under Tubby that we lost a lot of close games. Other than that, Tubby has been excellent in close game situations.

[kj]

TG, have to disagree. RP's schedules weren't top 5 but if I remember correctly they were in top 20 toughest schedulesseveral times, not exactly dogmeat. And the SEC may be tougher from top to bottom now then it was then but how many Final Four teams has the SEC had in Tubby's reign? Not many. I know of UF, MSU, and Arkansas in the 90's. Plus UK has come down to the pack as well as the pack getting better.

Sugarcoating SOS and anything else will not disguise the FACT that UK is not the program it was 6 years ago. It may come back, we'll see won't we?

[Tummygoat]

We also lost to that MSU team and some UA teams.

Being top heavy is fine because for one two of the ones you mention are in the West so at worst we could have lost 2 games in the SEC. Now we have a very awesome East and West. There's a lot more competition now than ever. The SEC was the weakest of the big conferences during Pitino era. True we had some Final Four teams, but I dont think anyone would argue that the SEC is nowhere near what it used to be. It's actually respectable now.

[Administrator]

6-7 years ago we were just beginning a 3 year run at the national title finishing each year IN the championship game. That's 3 straight trips to Graceland baby.

I don't know of any team that could sustain such success. Furthermore, I don't know of any team that went to 3 straight finals other than maybe UCLA and Duke.